Because there might actually be people named “Mickey Mouse” and “Adolf Hitler” living in Wisconsin.
Wisconsin’s Government Accountability Board won’t throw out the signatures of fictional or long-dead historical figures, if those names appear on a petition to recall Governor Walker:
The signatures of Mickey Mouse and Adolf Hitler will be counted on recall petitions targeting Gov. Scott Walker as long as they are properly dated and include a Wisconsin address, the board charged with reviewing the petitions was told Tuesday.
Suspicious signatures will be noted when the Government Accountability Board reviews the petitions, but reviewers will look to see that signatures are accompanied by a Wisconsin address and are dated as having been signed during the circulation period, board elections specialist David Buerger said.
“We will flag them, but we will not strike them without challenge,” Buerger said after being asked whether Mickey Mouse’s signature would be counted. He noted that in previous recall petitions, Adolf Hitler’s name was struck because the address given was in Germany, not because of the name itself.
The recall effort has 60 days to collect the signatures. Once their deadline passes, the GAB has 31 days to certify them (although they’re asking for an extension to 60 days). Then it’s up to the recall opponents to weed out bad signatures:
Challenges must be made within 10 days after copies of the petitions are given to the targeted office holders, but an extension to that is also expected to be sought.
Ten days to compile, read, and check out over half a million signatures, and if you miss Adolf Hitler – even if it’s written in messy handwriting – too bad. It’ll count.
I want typed-out names, so you can use a computer to do targeted searches. I mean, I’d like to know if anyone signed my name and address, but how would I check? Read the handwriting on all of the pages?
If you even can read all the handwriting. What if the address is written messily or is misspelled? What if you can’t make out exactly what it says?
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